Team:
dr Anna Czarniecka
dr Krzysztof Kossarzecki
dr Zbigniew Hundert

The aim of the project is to prepare a scientific edition of the part of the diary of activities of the Vitebsk voivode, Jan Antoni Chrapowicki (1612-1685), remaining in the manuscript. These are four volumes (volumes IV-VII of the entire source), covering the period from January 1674 to November 1685, as well as the unpublished final part of volume III, covering the period from April 18 to the end of December 1673. The edition will be preceded by an academic introduction. It will use source materials collected during searches in archives and libraries (mainly in Vilnius, Minsk and Kiev), expanding the knowledge of the author’s biography with information that was not available to the editor of the first volume of the diary in the 1970s.

The author of this source, the voivode of Vitebsk, Jan Antoni Chrapowicki (1612-1685) was a Lithuanian nobleman. As a deputy and senator, he represented Lithuania almost 30 times during the sessions of the general parliament. He came from the Vitebsk voivodeship, lived in the Smolensk region for 11 years (1643-1654), after 1654 he was an exulant (refugee) in Podlasie and in the Grodno poviat, to return to the Witebszczyzna after 1667. His diary is an excellent source illustrating public activity, lifestyle, as well as culture, mentality, or the language of representatives of the nobility in the eastern territories of the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the 17th century, and also unique for research on the climate in the second half of the 17th century.